Weekend tech reading: iPhone 4S has battery life issues

iPhone 4S battery life problems: bug in location services suspected A flaw in Apple's location services system in its new iOS 5 software is increasingly suspected of being the cause of rapid battery drain for some owners of the iPhone 4S. A growing number of people have found that the "Setting Time Zone" element of the Systems Services within the broader Location Services product seems to be operating even when there is no chance that the user would have moved... The Guardian

Apple acquired mind-blowing 3D mapping company C3 Technologies, looking to take iOS Maps to the next level Since the original iPhone’s debut in 2007, Apple’s iOS devices have made use of an Apple-built Google Maps application to provide users with a quick glance at driving directions, traffic, route guidance, current location information, and details about destinations. Like with most sections of Apple’s business, the company is continually innovating, looking to take products to the next level. 9to5Mac

China has homemade supercomputer gain China has made its first supercomputer based on Chinese microprocessor chips, an advance that surprised high-performance computing specialists in the United States. The announcement was made this week at a technical meeting held in Jinan, China, organized by industry and government organizations. The new machine, the Sunway BlueLight MPP, was installed in September at... The NY Times

Graphene-based transistors may be on the horizon Graphene is today's miracle material. It is strong, it is flexible, and it conducts electricity. It possibly also wears its underpants on the outside of its tights and rescues kids from burning buildings. The conductivity part is perhaps the most exciting. Graphene allows electrons to move ballistically, meaning they don't face any resistance, but require an external voltage in order to move. Ars Technica

ARM unleashes ARMv8 64-bit architecture ARM this week disclosed technical details of its new ARMv8 architecture, the first ARM architecture to include a 64-bit instruction set. ARMv8 broadens the ARM architecture to embrace 64-bit processing and extends virtual addressing, building on the rich heritage of the 32-bit ARMv7 architecture upon which market leading cores such as the Cortex-A9 and Cortex-A15 processors are built. X-bit labs

Pirated Modern Warfare 3 discs are already spreading (exclusive) Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t come out until Nov. 8. But pirates have already obtained the video game -- one of the most-anticipated of the year -- VentureBeat has learned. The PC version of the game, or at least part of it, has been circulating among pirates in the U.S., who illegally copy and share it without paying Activision Blizzard or its retailers. GamesBeat

ARM TechCon awards celebrate excellence This year saw the inaugural Best in Show Awards which recognized the best-in-class technologies introduced since the last ARM TechCon. There were three awards, one for Chip Design, one for Software and a third for Hardware and the winners were selected by a group of editors that cover the industry. EETimes

Online hackers threaten to expose cartel's secrets An international group of online hackers is warning a Mexican drug cartel to release one of its members, kidnapped from a street protest, or it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate's associates, from corrupt police to taxi drivers, as well as reveal the syndicates' businesses. Chron

Apple shifts Lossless Audio Codec to open source Cupertino has open sourced its Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC), seven years after first introducing it. The ALAC can reduce the amount of storage needed for audio files by as much as 50 per cent, but without losing any of the fidelity of the original recording. The Register

Trine 2 multiplayer beta begins for pre-orders Trine 2 pre-orders have now begun on Steam, bringing with them an exciting bonus--instant access to the online co-op multiplayer beta. The new Steam product page also gives a December release window, the most specific we've seen so far. Shacknews

AMD's next-gen GPUs to ship in 2011 At their last conference call for Q2 2011, AMD revealed that 28nm GPUs were on track for 2011. Moving forward to the Q3 2011 financial report, AMD still plans plans to ship for revenue the first next-gen GPUs by the end of the year. VR-Zone